Newton Active Run 2009

The first real read competitive race of the year and I choose to walk 90% of it. Ha ha ha.

But I had a really nice time this morning helping out as a volunteer. The Mrs and I were roped in to perform what was termed "Run Marshall" ie instead of jagaing at a certain point along the route, we were supposed to run along with the runners and look out for runners who were unwell, lost, etc. Specifically, we were given the sweeper role for the Veteran's race. That mean we had to make sure the last runner complete in one piece.

I was given a walkie talkie and I also brought along my ailing compact camera hoping to take some nice shots enroute. The only equipment that I was not carrying was a broom to sweep up the runners and the many roadkills along the roads.

After our race was flagged off at 7.45am, we started walking 500 metres later. And that was the pattern throughout although I did play cheat and occasionally dashed ahead or took shortcut to take photographs. Being the sweeper, it was difficult to take photos of the runners and I had to run across to the other side of the road to take the returning runners from the Open event. Otherwise I will be taking mostly pictures of backside! However, it is never easy taking photos on the run and so most of the photos came out blurrryyyy. And with a camera that is feeling as old as the photographer, taking forever to recharge, a lot of nice photo opportunities was lost.... Yah blame the tool not the person behind it:)

Rest of the photos here and on Facebook and sgrunners' photo album